I Want To Take A Quick(ish) Look At Zeref And Mavis.

I want to take a quick(ish) look at Zeref and Mavis.

In my opinion, these two are the most tragic pair in the entire series. Arguments could be made about Erza and Jellal, or maybe Ultear and Ur but it really is these two. A cursed boy and a cursed girl.

To start, Zeref's entire family was killed, including his baby brother who would have been 7 years old-max. So, as any aspiring wizard does, Zeref started to try and ring Natsu back to life. Some attempts were misguided, like the R-System, but if the Eclipse Gate was worked properly nobody would have to die.

Then, Zeref was kicked out of his school. For the simple act of wanting to see his brother again. And suddenly, he was cursed with the Curse of Contradiction. As a reminder, the curse makes it so the more you value life, the more death magic you emit. Forcing you to either be numb to all life around you (including people, animals, plants etc.) and living in solitude, or loving life and killing everyone you love. And, to top it all off, it makes the cursed immortal. So you are doomed to an entire life of misery, solitude, and death.

So, Zeref moves on trying to ressurect his brother. The worst has already happened to him, so he continues trying. When he finally succeeds, he still has to wait around 400 years to meet his brother again, with the prayer that Natsu would be strong enough to kill him. In that meantime, he doesn't do much, until 300 years into his solitude, when he finds Mavis.

For her part, Mavis was orphaned before the age of 6, and forced into servitude to pay off her parent's debts. Then, everyone she knows except one girl her age, are murdered. She lived for 7 years with that one friend before finally leaving Tenrou Island. Once she does, she a)makes friends, b) learns magic, c) saves a town from an invasion, d) becomes immortal, e) learns her only friend that she had on Tenrou was an illusion her subconscious created to keep her sane and f) gets cursed with that same curse that Zeref has, all within 90 days. But she doesn't realize she is cursed. 10 years later, when she meets Zeref again, he tells her she has the Curse of Contradiction. The crime that she committed to get this curse? Saving a friends life.

Of course she doesn't believe him, and goes back to the guild she founded and witnesses the birth of Makarov. Then, as one does, she is hit by a wave of appreciation for life. That activates the curse, and then Makarov's mother died.

Mavis took off, wandering around for a year including starving herself for 6 months before Zeref finds her. Realizing that they are the only two people who can love each other, they kiss. Zeref, being cursed for far longer, feels actual love for her. She, seeing a soul that needs love desperately, feels compassionate for him. Compassion not quite equaling love, he kills her.

Then, in probably the truest act of love in the story, Zeref returned Mavis’ body to the guild, to people that love her. To do that, he had to stop loving her. That moment hurt me on a fundamental level.

To top it all off, Mavis and Zeref have a kid. The kid knows that Zeref is his father, but also knows about the curse. So he can’t tell Zeref the truth. Which would be worse? Telling Zeref that he is Augusts father and being killed by the curse, or learning that your own father didn’t truly love you? I haven’t quite gotten to the part where August dies yet but it is going to be awful.

And the only way to save the world from Zeref taking it over?? It’s simple. Mavis figured it out from watching Natsu and Lucy fight together. She just had to love him. This sent both of them to their final deaths. The one magic, love.

I was struggling so much on my current WIP, until I decided that the only way to fix it was to write at least 2 times more words, making the timelines and POV's hopelessly intertwined. This is my longest piece by far, and I haven't even reached halfway through the rewrite. Fml.

WIP Wednesday

This is from my current WIP and it's double anything I've written before. It was supposed to be short and sweet but adding two more POV's and a habit of using drawn out metaphors made it longer.

Basically, it's looking at Simon and Baz's relationships from the perspective of places and things in Watford (think the Crucible, Shepard's truck etc.) with Simon and Baz chiming in with their thoughts and feelings on the events through the series and after.

Anyways, this is an excerpt from the POV of the Catacombs from about 5th year:

Baz would always come down and escape. He’d hunt the ever present rats, wander around for hours, and spend time at his mother’s grave. From what I picked of his conversations with Natasha, it was hard for him. His father pointedly ignored who he was. Baz felt that he had to be the absolute best to meet his mother’s standards. He was a vampire, not even a human, and he had no support when he was at Watford. Hence waking in the small hours of the morning to hunt rats in the dark to stay alive.

How am I supposed to be okay with this? I want to read about their wedding and marriage and mortgage so badly…

rainbow rowell just casually confirming simon and baz are married with absolutely no warning 😭

I love Fairy Tail Zerø so much. Something about the characters is so endearing. Mavis has all the ambition and heart it takes to create a guild. Yuri has the energy and reckless abandon that the guild later embodies. Warrod has the heart of the guild and Precht has the brains. They were all a perfect match for each other.

Zera’s story hurts me fundamentally. She and Mavis agreed to be friends right as Zera died, then Mavis inadvertently created the illusion so she wouldn’t be lonely. The boys caught on so quickly and it was so kind of them to pretend with Mavis. They never once let slip that they couldn’t see her.

Zeref and Mavis. These two are so tragic. Mavis knew his curse on the spot and was able to relieve his loneliness for a little while. I can’t believe their story later on. It’s terrible what they (specifically Mavis) have to go through.

Anyways, Fairy Tail Zerø is so close to my heart. I cried so many times through but that’s alright. These kids deserve a few tears. I think the ‘what comes next’ blurb at the end severely downplays what actually happened to all these characters. They all met such a tragic end, save Warrod (who suffered too. He lost his best friends to horrible circumstances). I’m so close to the end of the series it’s insane…

Fuck it was disappointing. No Hermit and Weiss being a couple as they deserve. And Shikka was OFFSCREENED. OFF. SCREENED. THE MAIN SHIP. WE DONT EVEN SEE THEIR FUCKING CHILD. This and Noragami needed 5 more chapters and it would’ve been perfect.

Not me delusionally thinking that if I don’t read the final chapter of EDENS ZERO it will never happen…